Embedding R-generated Interactive HTML pages in MS PowerPoint

By Richard Pugh – Commercial Director, UK. 

Usually when I create slide decks these days I used markdown and slidy.  However, I recently was asked to present using an existing Revolution Microsoft PowerPoint template.

Trouble is, I’ve been spoilt with the advantages of using a HTML-based presentation technology and I wanted to include some interactive web elements.  In particular, I wanted to use a motion chart generated with the fantastic googleVis package.  Of course, that presented an issue – how was I to include some interactive HTML elements in my PowerPoint deck?

The answer turned out to involve a PowerPoint plug-in called LiveWeb.  These were the steps I took:

• Download LiveWeb from http://skp.mvps.org/liveweb.htm and install it.  This adds a couple of buttons onto the PowerPoint tool bar (for me, it appears in the “Insert” part of the ribbon)

• Generate your web content.  In my version, that meant using googleVis to generate a web page
• Use the LiveWeb plugin to point your slide to the web page
• Click play and wave hands like Hans Rosling which rapidly talking about your slide:

Btw – this also works for other HTML content, such as Shiny apps.  Here’s one from the RStudio Shiny Example page …

So, if you have want to use MS PowerPoint, it is still possible to include R-generated interactive HTML content using the above steps.